Brexit is not leaving

The film 'The Matrix'. Swallow the red pill for reality the blue for an artificially constructed illusion

This Thursday Boris expects you to give him the
parliamentary majority he needs to GET BREXIT DONE. Of course, we all know that his ‘oven-ready’
deal is merely a reheat of Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, which Boris had
denounced as a dog’s breakfast. There is so much wrong with this treaty, but
one of my favourite clauses is that a banker from an EU state working in London
is exempt from UK law. Doesn’t that say it all?

The electorate, or at least the democratically-adherent
majority, has had enough of the Brexit impasse and just wants it sorted,
however unsatisfactorily. Many will vote negatively to keep Corbyn out, just as
the crusty Trot will reap votes from rich Remainers desperate to stop Brexit.
However, some Brexit purists refuse to participate in the pragmatism of
tactical voting. Will they help or
hinder their cause?

A week from polling day, I attended a rally by the Brexit
Party in my constituency of Carshalton & Wallington, featuring MEPs Claire
Fox and Ben Habib, alongside local candidate James Woudhuysen. It was not a good day for them. Four leading
figures (Lucy Harria, Lance Forman, John Longworth and Annunziata Rees-Mogg)
had quit, criticising their party for risking everything it stood for by
splitting the Leave vote.

I felt sorry for Claire and colleagues. What a come-down from
their last rally I attended in May, two days before the Brexit Party took the
EU election by storm. From the
razzmatazz of Olympia to a sparsely-populated suburban social club; from 32% in
the European election to 3% in the latest opinion polls. They were enraged by
the treachery, and deflated by the tiny turnout.

Two days later, I joined a larger gathering in Littlehampton
for the UKIP branch’s Christmas lunch. That morning I was campaigning in the
shopping precinct with David Kurten, the only Leaver on the ballot (as is the
case in many Tory seats with a Remainer MP). The Labour Party also had a stall,
drawing some heckling for their betrayal of the referendum verdict. It’s a safe
Tory seat, but townsfolk felt taken for granted by schools minister Nick Gibb.
Kurten, a UKIP stalwart on the London Assembly, hopes for enough of a vote
share to send a message to a complacent Tory party.

While there is little danger in voting for UKIP in Bognor
Regis & Littlehampton, it makes no sense for the Brexit Party to contest
Carshalton & Wallington. This is a Leave area, but for 22 years has been
represented by ardent Europhile Tom Brake. The Illberal Undemocrats are quietly
pleased whenever they see Woudhuysen and his balloons on the high street.
Brake’s majority has been declining, and in 2017 was a little over a thousand.
The day after the Carshalton meeting, the Daily
Mail highlighted this as a seat that the Brexit Party could gift to
Remainers, with Woudhuysen taking three thousand votes and Brake winning by
five hundred.

The young Tory Leaver would be thwarted not by Brake’s
popularity, but by a Brexit Party own goal. Why are they doing this? A clue is
in the campaign leaflet: the target of Woudhuysen’s ire is not the incumbent MP
and his contempt for Leave voters, but the Conservatives. It seems that Farage
and fellow travellers would rather derail Boris than get Brexit started.
Indeed, some party figures want to go back to the drawing board, and perhaps
fight the referendum battle again.

If the choice on Thursday was only between the Tories and
the Brexit Party, I’d choose the latter. But in a close contest, a vote for
Boris is a must for Leavers. There is, however, one exception I’d make to this
policy.

In Broxtowe, Nottinghamshire, a persecuted Leave activist is
standing, and she deserves support on a matter of principle. Have you ever
heard of a candidate in a British general election being barred from stepping
foot in the constituency, and the following count? Brazen interference of the
courts in politics did not end with the Supreme Court over-ruling Boris’
prorogue of parliament.

In November Amy Della Mura, who is standing for the English
Democrats, was convicted at Westminster Magistrate’s Court for causing ‘alarm
and distress’ to Anna Soubry. I have met this somewhat eccentric woman at
protests outside Westminster. She considers Soubry to be a traitor, and called
her such. She also, according to the court, repeatedly interrupted the MP
during a televised interview. Hardly a crime, you might think – particularly
after Soubry likened Leavers to Nazis. But Della Mura is threatened with
imprisonment (sentencing was deferred until after the election) and she cannot
name Soubry in any campaign material.

This should have been a major controversy, but it was
ignored by the mainstream media other than reporting the verdict as if it were
normal legal practice. On Spiked website,
libertarian commentator Brendan O’Neil asked ‘Is it against the law to protest
against Anna Soubry?’ It seems so. Why was such a trivial incident
criminalised? Why was it judged by Lady Emma Arbuthnot, wife of an old
acquaintance of Soubry (James Arbuthnot, like Soubry, was a barrister and later
a Tory MP)? Della Mura now has more reason to stand than her initial resistance
to an insufferable Remainiac.

Meanwhile Steve Bray, the paid Remainer who incessantly shouts ‘Stop Brexit’ outside Westminster, is standing in a Welsh seat. He never had his collar tickled in over three years of interrupting MPs and telling the likes of me to ‘F off back to Wetherspoons’. Wouldn’t it be nice if Steve won, and took his place on the green benches minus his megaphone, to witness Boris GETTING BREXIT DONE.

Paul, if when you mention Niall getting 2 candidates’ names wrong, you mean George Formby (Mr Wu Is An Air Raid Warden) and Ronnie Frankau (The Jap and The Wop and the Hun) I was just looking to see how awake everyone was at 10:44 p.m. last night. Be well!